Reasons To Live
by Emma Arthur
Summary: "So you're here to give me a reason to live?" "Our Underground station in Atlanta. We want you to help lead it. [...] I'm here to give you a purpose again, John."
1. Chapter 1

[drug addiction and withdrawal, problematic use of mutant powers, mentions of pain, vomiting, war injuries, death, psychiatric care abuse, meds and drugs]

So, new story. I don't really know where I'm going with this. I want to write about John and Lorna pre-series, and possibly the others, but it's not going to be a long multi-chapter, as I don't think I can handle that. It will probably be a series of shorter fics, each for a moment or a scene.

The series should span the four or so years between 7/15 and the beginning of the series eventually, possibly further. Fics won't necessarily be in order. This universe ties up with my other fics (The World As We Know It, All We Stand To Lose and the Sense series) and will use the same general headcanons, though it shouldn't be necessary to read them to understand this one.

This particular chapter is the first of two or three, probably, to start it off. I don't actually know where I'm going, I'm not completely satisfied with this part, but I'll post it rather than changing my mind and scratching it entirely. Hopefully you'll like it anyway.

* * *

John weakly makes his way back from the bathroom and lets himself drop on the bed, now free of the chains. The bed creaks ominously, and John gets down on one knee to inspect the damage. It's ruined, the wood cracked and splintered along most of the length. It doesn't matter. He didn't intend on staying here much longer anyway, and this apartment was a ruin when he rented it.

He winces at the pull of his muscles, getting back on his feet. Spending a week chained to a bed didn't do wonders for his already abused body, and the excruciating muscle cramps that apparently come with acute withdrawal have taken their toll. He feels wrecked. This is the first day he can stand, let alone walk, since he started experiencing symptoms over ten days ago, and he still feels like he's been hit with the worst ever case of the flu. He hasn't managed to keep any food down in days, and he's still too queasy to even think of eating.

Evangeline is working at the desk, which she's declared hers since she basically moved in. John is torn about her: he's grateful she stayed this long, through him screaming her ears off and trying to attack her, through him throwing up on her shoes and passing out from the pain−because of course his body had to choose this moment for a migraine−but he can't help resenting her for making him go through that at all. The unrelenting craving for pills, that barely let him think about anything else, is not helping.

Giving up on the bed, he folds himself into the room's single armchair, where Evangeline has spent the past ten nights.

"When you found me in the fight club, you said you wanted me to _help_ lead the Atlanta station," he says. "Does that mean you have someone else in mind?"

Evangeline looks up from her paperwork and evaluates his question for a moment.

"Have you heard of Lorna Dane?" she asks.

"Lorna? Yes, I remember her," John says. "You're thinking of her?"

"You've met before?"

"We were at the Institute together," John nods.

"Wait, the Institute? You were at Xavier's school?"

John frowns, surprised. "You didn't know? Why did you think the X-Men sent you to find me?"

Evangeline just shakes her head, taken aback. "I don't know. You're the one who were surprised when I told you they wanted you."

"I'm not who I was back then," John says darkly. "I refused to become part of their team and I enlisted instead. They have no reason to want me. I thought you knew."

"I wasn't−" Evangeline hesitates. "I was only Xavier's lawyer for a couple of years before they disappeared. I never really met the children from the school. I guess they didn't tell me as much as I thought."

John nods. "Anyway, why Lorna? She's younger than me, so I didn't know her well, but she didn't seem the type of person you'd want to lead a clandestine network back then."

"I don't know. Xavier just gave me a list of names and locations."

"And you knew so much about me because…"

"I did my homework," Evangeline answers. "It was all in your military records."

John scowls. "So the X-Men are in the wind and you're out there looking for mutants to help you build an underground network, but you don't even know who it is you're supposed to find? That doesn't sound like a great base to build on."

"It's all we have," Evangeline sighs.

"So where is Lorna now?"

"You're not going to like it."

John laughs, then coughs when it irritates his still sore throat. "Evangeline, you essentially just pulled me out of the gutter. Few of us are as well-adjusted as you, I'm aware of that."

"She's in a psychiatric hospital," Evangeline says. "I'm working on getting her out."

John chokes on her words. "How did she land herself there? She used to swear she'd never put a foot inside a hospital ever again."

"She was committed before?"

"Yeah. She had just got out of there when her...aunt or something brought her to the school. She was fourteen."

"I see. Well, she was arrested just before 7/15 during another protest. She already had a bipolar disorder diagnosis, so she ended up in the hospital rather than jail. She's lucky her trial was before the attacks, or she'd probably have disappeared in one of their mutant facilities."

"Well, I'm sure we'll make a great team," John deadpans. "How do you expect us to help _anyone_ with that kind of baggage?"

"You know what it's like to need that kind of help. There are dozens of mutants out there watching their life pass them by, working menial jobs or addicted to Kicks already. Who can save them better than people who've been where they are?"

"Great," John mutters. "I'm sure we'll do a stellar job of it."

"John, you've lead men before, and you've done it well. I know you have it in you."

"Yeah, I led my entire unit into a trap. That's great leadership right there."

Evangeline looks at him sharply. "It wasn't your fault, John. You didn't kill them."

"And what would you know about that?"

"I've read your file, remember."

"You have no idea what it was like over there," John mutters angrily.

"No, I don't. But I know that the way things are going, it's not gonna be any better over here soon. There is going to be a war, John. We need fighters."

"It's funny, how things happen, don't you think? I get shipped out to fight for my country, I lose my brothers, I get hurt, and the moment I come home my own country turns against me?"

Evangeline sighs again.

"Look, the reason I told you about Lorna is because I'm worried. I'm going to have to go back to Philadelphia almost as soon as she gets out. She'll have to go off her treatment, and she's going to be unstable for a while. You're not out of the woods yourself. Do you think you can handle helping her through this?"

John shrugs. "If she's willing to work with me."

"She was about as enthusiastic as you when I talked to her, so you should hit off just fine."

"Right. When are we leaving?"

"If you have anything here you need to take care of, you should do it now. We're driving out to Atlanta in the morning."

Great. A nearly thirty-hour drive is just what John needs now. Especially stuck in a car with a woman he barely knows and whose shoes he's already puked on a couple of times.

"It's gonna be a long ride," he says.

"It's not like you can fly, you're a fugitive. And we have a few stops to make along the way. I want you to see the stations that are already helping mutants across the border."

* * *

"Come in," Lorna answers the knock on her room door, not bothering to turn from where she's standing by the tiny window.

"Someone's here to see you," the nurse−Kelly, the only one Lorna even bothers to talk to−announces, opening the door wide.

"We're here to get you out," says a second voice. The lawyer. Evangeline Whedon.

"Just like that?" Lorna asks, squinting at the parking lot below, trying to make out which doctor is getting into his car.

"You should only have to sign a couple of papers."

Lorna turns around. "They told me I was getting out today. I didn't know you'd come to get me."

"I told you I'd take care of everything," Evangeline says, walking into the room, handing her a file. "And that there were conditions."

Lorna skims over the first page−discharge papers−and flings her hand to bring Evangeline's metal pen to her. She signs her name at the bottom absently.

"Help you with your project, I know," she answers.

She looks up from the papers and goes to hand the file back, but she stops sort. Standing a few paces behind Evangeline, leaning on the doorway, is a man with long hair almost covering his face.

He looks up at her and Lorna freezes. His face rings a bell, though he's changed. A lot. And he's about the last person she expected to see today.

"John Proudstar," she says, blinking at him.

"Lorna," he answers with a nod.

"What on earth are you doing here?"

"It's a bit of a long story," John says.

"And not something we can talk about here," Evangeline adds, taking the file and the pen back from her. "Car's out front."

Lorna nods and gathers her meager belongings. It's basically just the clothes she walked in here with, and a couple of notebooks her therapist had her use to write her thoughts. And her birth father's medallion, safe in her back pocket.

Walking out of the hospital, after nearly a year inside, is not as climatic as she'd have thought. She's dreamed about this moment many times, but it never included a strange lawyer, a man from her past she hasn't seen in years, and no money or clothes, nowhere to go. More to the point, her dreams of the future never included anything beyond walking through that door.

And now it feels overwhelming, all these things she has to figure out.

Lorna takes a shaky breath, struggling to stay in the moment.

"You look awful," she tells John, because he does. He has dark circles under his eyes so deep his face looks sunk in, and his long hair is greasy and tangled. The last time Lorna saw him, he'd shaved all his hair upon enlisting and stood sharp in his brand new uniform. What the hell happened to him since then?

"So do you," John answers, and Lorna knows it's true. She's lost so much weight in eight months in this place that she can barely stand to look at herself in the mirror, gaunt and white as a ghost.

"Can you handle things for a minute?" Evangeline asks John. "I need to go file this paperwork. Car's open."

"Sure," John shrugs. "Not like we're going anywhere without you."

Lorna looks down, spotting the car keys in Evangeline's grasp that she doesn't hand over, and the slight tremor of John's hands. She wonders if John is as much a prisoner, a lost soul in this as she is.

She'll never admit it, but he used to be one of the older kids she looked up to, at the Institute. He was loved by all, always ready to help and take care of the younger children, promised to a brilliant future with the X-Men. She still doesn't know what made him enlist instead, but she imagined him sometimes, during her last years at the school, a decorated officer receiving his superiors' praise.

An adult, disheveled John, looking for all the world like a junkie, never featured in her daydreams. During the little TV time she was allowed, she heard that all the mutants in the military had been discharged and most of them arrested after 7/15, but by then she'd mostly forgotten about anything else than herself and the drugs they had her on to control her, so she never truly connected it to the one Marine mutant she once knew.

"Get in," John tells her, nodding to the passenger seat. "You get to see the sights, this once."

Lorna watches him for a little longer, then she opens the door.

"_That's_ Whedon's car?" she asks with a frown of disgust. The outside, a dusty old Ford, surprised her, but the inside is worse. There are take-out wrappers lying around discarded, and a bunch of blankets rolled up on the back seat, like someone's been living in there.

"It's mine," John growls. "And we just drove here from Tucson, okay?"

Lorna shrugs. "Whatever. How long are we supposed to wait here?"

"However long it takes Evangeline to get back," John says, folding himself into the back seat, pushing the mess away. "You do know she's doing this for you, right?"

"She's not doing it for me. She's doing it for her _cause_."

"You really think her cause needs people like us? No. The Professor is behind this, even if he's gone. And you know how he was with second chances."

"People like us?" Lorna echoes, turning to look at him. "And what do you think _we _have in common?"

Her tone is purposefully biting, haughty, but John doesn't even flinch.

"We're both broken," he shrugs. He looks impressively cheerful saying that.

Lorna freezes for an instant, then takes a breath. "Don't," she murmurs.

With a flick of her hand, she uses the metal buckle of John's seat-belt to pin his to the seat.

"That supposed to scare me?" John asks sarcastically.

Lorna releases the buckle, making the seat-belt withdraw back brutally and slam on the door. John winces at the noise. Lorna looks for something else to use, regretting the knives she used to carry with her everywhere, and she finds metal where she didn't expect it. She pulls experimentally.

"What about that?" she asks.

John freezes, a strangled sound escaping his lips. Even as she releases her hold on the metal pieces embedded in his back, he doesn't move. Lorna is not cruel enough to do any real damage without being provoked, if she even could given how solid his flesh feels, but there's real fear in his eyes.

"Don't ever do that again," he mutters, far less intimidating than he probably wants to be. There's too much pain in his voice for the threat to be effective. He gingerly shift in his seat, one hand going to his thigh as if to make sure it's still there.

"Okay, whatever," Lorna raises her hands, trying to pretend it doesn't affect her. "I wasn't gonna hurt you."

"Right," John says.

Lorna looks away, sitting back to get him out of her sight.

The strength of her reaction surprises her. John's right, of course, she's all kinds of messed-up and broken and crazy. It's not like she hasn't heard that all her life.

Except the way he said it is not like any of the asshole kids who bullied her at school. It's not like the psychiatrists' patronizing platitudes. It's deeper. It's real, from someone who knows what he's talking about.

And when did John goddamn Proudstar earn the right to know this about her?

Neither of them speak a word until Evangeline comes back to the car. She throws them both a look, as if she knows what transpired and she's not going to be patient with them, but John and Lorna ignore her. Lorna keeps watching John in the wing mirror until Evangeline starts the car.

* * *

Please tell me what you think! Do you want to read more of this fic? Of this series?

I'll probably also take prompts for further fics, so if there's a particular scene you want to read about, feel free to drop it in the comments.

I don't know when I'll post the next part of this, since I only have snippets written so far. But sometime soon.


	2. Chapter 2

[mentions of drug addiction and withdrawal, pain, vomiting, psychiatric care abuse]

I'm sure I'm not the only one really sad at the show's cancellation, but I finally made it through this chapter.

* * *

"Lorna, you have any contact with mutants around here?"

John can feel Lorna blink at Evangeline. He can relate with her surprise. It turns out that Evangeline has come to them both with no resources at all, intending to leave them to build her dream Underground station from scratch. John hasn't even set foot in Atlanta before today. What does she think they can do?

"There's this bar," Lorna says after thinking for a while. "It's run by a mutant. I don't really know the guy that well, but he definitely knows the local community."

"Lead the way," Evangeline says. "At least we won't have to stay crammed in a stinking car."

John thinks privately that his cramped, smelly car might be better than a loud bar. It's the middle of the day, so there's the chance that it might not be too busy, but he still doesn't like the idea. Though the worst of his acute withdrawal symptoms have abated, one thing he's found out in the last two weeks is that his hypersensitivities can, in fact, get worse than during a migraine. It was not a pleasant discovery.

Tex's lounge is dark, at least, and mostly empty when they get there. The owner is alone behind the counter, with only a couple of patrons at a table near the back.

"Fade," Lorna says, approaching the large man.

He looks at her for a moment. "Polaris," he says eventually. "You haven't been around here in a long time."

John blinks at the nickname. He's pretty sure Lorna chose it while she was still a teenager at the Institute, during the worse of her rebellious phase. She's still using that?

But then Fade is obviously a nickname too, and John himself hasn't been called anything but Thunderbird, the ridiculous code name his unit chose for him, since he enlisted. It was actually weird hearing Evangeline call him by his given name, back in the fight club. No one has used it in years but Pulse.

"I was...away," Lorna says.

"I figured you were probably dead," Fade shrugs. John raises an eyebrow at his callousness. "Who are your friends? Are you even here for a drink?"

"Yes," Evangeline answers instead of Lorna. "I'll have a Martini, please. And we need to talk to you."

"I'm John Proudstar," John introduces himself, deciding to go for the polite way since no-one else seems to. He starts ordering a beer, but he feels Evangeline's stare. "I'll have a coke, please."

She's probably right, alcohol is unlikely to do him any good in his state. John glares back anyway.

"Fade," the man says, but he doesn't shake John's extended hand.

"This is Evangeline," Lorna adds. "She has a...project."

"You've heard of the Underground?" Evangeline asks.

Fade just nods, turning away to fill a dubiously clean glass for her. He puts a bottle in front of John, who takes a swing and remembers why he hates Coke. He sighs, annoyed.

It only takes a minute for Evangeline to explain her plan, as there really isn't much of one.

"So you want to build a clandestine mutant station here, but you don't know any mutants," Fade summarizes doubtfully.

"I get that it sounds−" Evangeline starts, glaring at John and Lorna when they make no move to defend her idea. They may be on board with this, but she's the one basically throwing them to the wolves here.

"It sounds ridiculous is what it does."

"I do know some mutants," Lorna says, in a weak attempt.

"Your junkie friends? You've been off the street for what, a year? Chances are they're all dead by now."

Lorna hangs her head, looking genuinely saddened. "You heard anything?" she asks Fade, not looking at him.

"Not much. Sometimes Sage comes in and I give her what I can. But it's been at least a month."

"The first thing we need is a place," John says, deciding that since he's involved, he might as well do the work in front of him.

"And you think I have, what, a hotel for mutants lying around?" Fade retorts.

"We thought you might know some people, or have an idea," Lorna says.

"Well I don't. I don't do charity, and I'm not going to let you put my bar in danger for your reckless little project. The only thing you're going to accomplish in getting yourselves and everyone who helps you arrested."

Fade turns away from them, going to the other end of the bar. John and Lorna look at each other, and she shrugs. "I didn't say I knew _nice_ mutants," she says.

Evangeline looks at her watch. "Unfortunately, this means you will have to figure this out on your own. I have a plane to catch."

"You're leaving now?"

"I have to be back in Philadelphia in the morning. I do have a day job, you know."

John almost growls at the disdain in her voice. Evangeline has made no secret of what she thinks of him, but it still grates him. Why help him through the withdrawal, stay in his tiny, crappy apartment for ten days while he puked his guts out every half-hour, if this is what she feels about him?

There's just as much disgust on Lorna's face. John remembers the number of fights she got into at school because someone called her crazy. Her mental health issues are still a painful subject, then. Not surprising, if she just spent nearly a year in a psychiatric hospital. John remembers all too well how awful those places can be.

Yes, neither of them have stable, productive lives. So what? They're mentally ill mutants, screwed over time and time again by the system. And they're going to help with Evangeline's Underground project. She has no right to believe she's better than them.

"I'll see if I can send anyone your way to help," Evangeline adds, softening a little. "In the meantime, this is the best I can do."

She opens her purse and takes out a small wad of bills. "It can get you through a couple of weeks if you're careful. Enough time to find a place and get things started."

"Thanks," John says. It's not a lot of money, but combined with the little he's saved from his last fights−the money he didn't have time to spend on drugs−it should help for a while.

"I'll get a taxi to the airport. Here's my phone number. Don't call unless you absolutely need to."

"Right," Lorna says dryly. "Thank you for all the help."

Evangeline frowns at her sarcasm. "You'd rather be back at the hospital?"

Lorna shakes her head.

"Thank you, really," John says. It's hard to be grateful when Evangeline is so cold and seemingly uncaring, but he's seen her differently in the last few weeks. No one who truly didn't care would have held his hair back as he puked dozens of times. He might hate her for getting him clean when the cravings get really bad, but intellectually he knows how much she helped.

Evangeline puts a folded piece of paper on the counter.

"Instructions on how to get onto our secure network. Memorize them and burn them."

She stands up and leaves, before John and Lorna can say another word. No goodbyes. They aren't friends, just people come together out of necessity.

John watches her go, then looks back at the money and the piece of paper on the counter.

"We share the money," he says, splitting the bills in two. He and Lorna have no good reason to trust each other, so it's the easiest solution.

Lorna looks at the paper, her lips moving as she commits it to memory. John imitates her while she makes her share of the money disappear into her pocket.

"Any thoughts on a place?" he asks, taking out a lighter to burn the paper. He holds it until it's nearly gone, the flame touching his fingers without burning them, then drops it into an ashtray.

"Not yet," Lorna answers. "I'll try to find Sage. She has a whole network of street mutants who squat buildings, maybe they'll think of something."

"Okay. We have enough to get a motel room until then, if it doesn't take too long."

* * *

Five days later, John sits down on his bed defeated, deciding that it is taking too long. Their money will be gone soon, and they're still getting nowhere. John has been trying to contact a few elusive mutants in the city, whose name other station leaders gave him on the drive from Tucson, but he's had no success so far. People are in hiding. With the situation getting worse everywhere, mutants who can pass for humans will do anything to protect their status, and the others don't show their faces if they can help it.

John hopes that Lorna has had more luck, because at this rate, they'll be on the streets in two days at the most. And Lorna is getting more and more restless everyday, as her meds finish running through her system. There's be no telling how she's going to feel tomorrow, if she'll be hiding under the covers or running up the walls.

"I found Sage," Lorna announces, walking into their room and locking the door behind her with a flick of her hand. "She went to see Fade, looking for food for her friends."

"Good," John says, "because I've gotten nowhere. Again."

"She says she's willing to help us find other mutants, but she doesn't believe in the Underground. She doesn't think we can accomplish anything," Lorna says dejectedly, throwing her bag on the second bed. They've been sleeping in the same room to save on rent, neither of them a stranger to tight living conditions.

"I'm getting closer to agreeing with her."

"So am I," Lorna admits. "At least she was mostly sober. She took me to her friends, everyone there was high on Kicks."

"I can hardly blame them," John mutters. The cravings are getting harder to ignore every day.

"You were on drugs too," Lorna understands.

John raises his gaze to meet hers in surprise. He hasn't told her that.

"It's not hard to guess. Your hands are still shaking, and you have that look in your eyes. I've been around enough addicts to know it."

"I...got lost for a while," John admits, looking away again. "Before Evangeline found me in Tucson."

"Why were you even in Tucson?" Lorna asks.

"I was looking for a friend," John says. "He was with me in the Corps, and he got arrested when the Sentinel Services rounded up every mutant who served."

"They seriously did that? I thought it was just a rumor. I heard they'd kicked all mutants out of the military, but..."

"I guess they figured out they couldn't afford to have an army of mutants trained for combat on their hands."

"God," Lorna murmurs. "So this is really it, uh? The repression has never been this bad before. The Brotherhood always said it would happen again, but this..."

"The Brotherhood, Lorna? They're who you're going to listen to?"

"Who else? The X-Men are gone. We don't know what happened to everyone at the Institute. Who are we supposed to follow, John?"

"Maybe it's time we stopped following anyone," John says. "We're not lost kids anymore. This network that Evangeline wants us to build...it's a good idea. I mean, I was reluctant at first, but it might actually work."

"Maybe it will help some mutants get out of the U.S. alive," Lorna sighs. "But it won't solve the larger problem. The humans are never going to stop oppressing us."

"No. But I'm starting to think that nothing will solve that. We've just got to do our best to help."

"And live in fear for the rest of our lives?"

"Do you see another solution? The Brotherhood? All they do is kill people and spread more fear. You think that's the solution?"

Lorna shrugs. "No. I don't know."

"Anyway, they're gone too," John says. "They haven't made a single announcement since the attacks."

"I still can't believe that they're all just...gone," Lorna bites her lip. "All at once? It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe they were targeted somehow. I've seen weirder shit in the Marines," John shrugs. He's been wondering the same thing, but there's no point in rehashing it. There's nothing they can do about it. "Sage give you anything on a place we can use?"

"Yes, actually, I may have something," Lorna says, excitement coming back in her voice. "I can't believe I didn't think of it before now, but Sage reminded me."

"What is it?"

"A year ago after the Oakland Riots, the National Guard attacked a mutant orphanage just outside the city. One of the kids freaked out and lost control. He killed five people, including himself, and destroyed the whole area. Sage told me it's still condemned and held as a toxic waste contamination site, because they aren't sure what he did."

"If it's dangerous−" John starts.

"That's just the thing, it's not," Lorna stops him. "The kid just made the ground shake."

"And you know that because−"

"Because I went there. It's how I got arrested, actually. I was with some friends, there was a Purifier protest by the site where they were telling everyone mutants are too dangerous to be left free, so we staged a counter protest, sneaked inside and scared the hell out of them."

John snorts. "Sounds like you alright," he says. "You think there are buildings in there we could use?"

"Yes. There's a bank that was undergoing construction work, it's still standing. We'd have to clear it out, but it should be easy to get the power back without anyone noticing, maybe even water. And it's huge. It could house fifty people if needed."

"Okay then," John says. "Let's check it out tomorrow."

* * *

I hope you liked this. There should be one more chapter to this story, and then I'll try to go on and make it a series, with different preseries moments, if I find the time and the inspiration now that there won't be a season 3.

On that note, the fandom is shrinking very fast, and I need reader interaction to get enough motivation to write. So if you want more, leave a comment, find me on Tumblr, keep the fandom alive a little while longer!


	3. Chapter 3

And here is the third and last chapter. John and Lorna get further into confessions and friendship as they team up to clear out the bank and make it livable.

* * *

John ducks as another metal rod flies past him, as little too close for comfort. Lorna's ability is powerful, but she doesn't have the greatest sense of spacial awareness. He glares at her.

"Sorry," she says sheepishly, landing the rod onto the pile of metal they're keeping. She can use it later to fortify the cracks in the building's foundation. For now the work they need to do is clear out the layers of rumble covering every surface of the abandoned bank.

It will be an amazing place, once repaired. John can already see how they can arrange it to house people, if they manage to get the water running. There are a dozen former offices that can be turned into bedrooms of some kind, and a barely damaged bathroom. With the addition of camp beds and second hand furniture, they could fit twenty people without feeling cramped. There's a huge hole in the floor by the stairs, but they're not here to make a luxury hotel. For a clandestine squat, it's paradise.

Swearing, he ducks under another heavy rod. "Lorna!"

"You were just standing there!"

"So what, you're gonna hit me because I'm taking a five-second break?"

"I just might!" Lorna says, sauntering over. "I've been doing all the heavy work."

John sputters. "Right. So you're the one who got the fallen concrete blocks out of the way and put the scaffolding back together."

"But you're so slow!"

John frowns. He hasn't been slow. Lifting the blocks takes time, because they're almost twice his size, but he's been working as fast as he could, as eager as she is to get this over with.

He watches Lorna move for a moment. She's fidgeting with her sleeves, flapping her hands quickly, while making the lighter metal pieces in the room fly around them. John avoid a screw headed for his face, and sighs.

It's been just over a week since he and Evangeline got Lorna out of the hospital, and she's been off her meds since then. John expected her to crash before now, and he rather thought it would be the other way, with how apathetic she'd started to get at the motel.

John himself is still feeling the effects of going off the meds cold turkey. They're not as brutal as the first couple of weeks, but his insomnia is worse than ever, and he invariably wakes up craving pills from the little sleep he gets. He never once imagined he'd dream of little white tablets, but he does. And through all that, the pain in his back is not giving him any respite.

He blinks when Lorna waves a hand in front of his face.

"What?"

"Where were you? I've been trying to get your attention for a while," Lorna says, now swinging back and forth on her heels.

That's another of the annoying side-effects, losing track of what's going on around him. God, the both of them are a mess.

"Sorry. What were you saying?"

"Would it actually hurt you, if I hit you with a rod?"

John rolls his eyes. "It probably wouldn't make me bleed, but I do feel pain, Lorna."

"You seem so invincible. That's what the girls at the Institute called you, you know. The Invincible John."

"I didn't know that," John snorts.

"They all loved you. Kept imagining what those abs felt like. It was always John this and John that."

The girls in Lorna's age range would have been quite a bit younger than him, John reflects. His own class never looked at him that way. They remembered the shy fourteen-year-old boy who couldn't come out of his room without ear defenders and extra-strength sunglasses.

"What about you?" he asks.

"I wanted to fight you," Lorna says. "You were never my type, but I've always wanted to know what my powers could do to you."

"Sadistic much?"

"Maybe," Lorna smirks. "We could try and see, one day."

"Oh, sure, let's get the attention of half the city when we're trying to be discreet."

Lorna shrugs. "We're pretty isolated out here. We have the whole 'contaminated' area to ourselves."

"We also have work to do," John says, picking up what used to be a large couch. It's unusable now, the frame bent so far out of shape it would break if he tried to bend it back. "God, the kid who did this must have had a lot of power," he says under his breath.

"I think he did," Lorna says sadly. "But we'll never know how he would have grown into it."

"So many lives wasted," John sighs.

"Probably more that we'll ever know. Sage says people have been disappearing, some of those who get arrested don't go to trial and just...vanish."

"Yeah," John says. "That's what happened to my friend. That's why I was looking for him. Other guys I knew in the Marines, too."

"And the whole time they blame us, for 7/15 and for pretty much everything that's happened since."

"You're angry," John states.

"Of course I'm angry!" Lorna blurts out. "They're killing us! How are _you_ so calm?"

John shrugs. "I'm tired of being angry," he says. "And I'm really, really tired of being helpless."

Lorna stares at him for a moment, then turns away, her shoulders slumping.

"I'm tired too," she says, so quietly that John only hears her because of his mutation.

* * *

"Can I ask you something?" Lorna asks, later, when they've moved on to clearing out rubble with brooms they found in a former supply closet.

"Yes?"

"Your friend, the one you were looking for. Did you ever find him?"

"No", John answers. "I know he was arrested, but I couldn't figure out where they took him. There were no trials, they just declared us all mentally unstable. It was pretty easy, few men ever come back from a tour overseas without some trouble adjusting, and even fewer mutants."

Lorna spends a minute clearing out another smattering of concrete fragments, digesting this.

"Why?" she asks. "Why is it worse for mutants?"

"Out there, they treat us like cannon fodder. Mutants, especially those with offensive powers, are useful, but expendable. The death rate for us is almost two to one."

"I had no idea," Lorna says. "I mean, I didn't think it was better than anywhere else, but−"

John shakes his head. "You don't know that when you enlist. It seems like a good way to make a difference, you know, show the world that mutants are willing to fight for their country too."

So that's why he enlisted, Lorna thinks. She wants to ask why he didn't become an X-Men, make a real difference, but she already knows. John doesn't want to be a superhero, he wants to belong. He wanted to fight _with_ humans, not pretend to take the high ground and save them from themselves. Lorna doesn't feel like that anymore, but she used to. She can understand.

"Why was your friend captured and not you?" she asks.

John looks up at her. "I wasn't high priority when they came for us, because my ability is mainly defensive and I was injured, but Pulse has the kind of power they can't leave alone. He can disrupt systems. Distantly. Computers, anything electrical. Mutant abilities, too."

"Wow, I can see why they'd want him."

"There are labs that have been experimenting on mutants, trying to reproduce their powers, make them into weapons. That's the other reason that they got everyone with combat training. They saw out there that mutants can be used to win their wars. If they can have our powers without having to give us rights, they won't hesitate for a minute. I need to get Pulse out."

Lorna looks at him for a moment, thinking.

"It's not just that, is it? There's more."

"He's...more than a friend. He was there for me when most of my unit−" John chokes on his words.

"I'm sorry," Lorna murmurs. It must have been close to a year, if it was before 7/15, but John still seems to be deeply affected. She can make a guess as to what happened, though it doesn't seem like the right time to ask.

"He's the one who got me through...the aftermath," John adds. "Until he disappeared."

"How did _you_ escape the purge?"

"We were already stateside when they discharged everyone," John says. "Most of the others got caught on their way back home, but I could see it coming. I signed myself out of the hospital just days after they issued the order to arrest us and when Pulse was taken, I ran."

"You were in the hospital?"

John looks away. "I got injured in the...explosion that took my unit. I was in PT."

"The metal in your back?" Lorna understands.

"Shrapnel, from an IED. The surgeon couldn't get it out because my skin is too dense."

"I could...maybe I could try," Lorna says. "To take it out for you."

John raises an eyebrow. "You think so? You can't just cut it out."

"My ability's pretty powerful, if I really concentrate. I don't know, it might not work."

John thinks about it for a moment. "Someday, maybe," he says. "We have other things to worry about right now."

Lorna nods. "Does it hurt? Your back?" she asks anyway, thinking back to last week, when she caught the metal pieces with her powers.

"It's not...great," John answers. "One of the pieces is pushing on some nerves going into my leg. The surgeon said it came really close to paralyzing me."

"Wow. I...I had no idea," Lorna bites her lip. "I'm sorry for what I did the other day. I wasn't actually going to do anything."

"I know," John says. "But...it's millimeters away from my spinal cord. Even just tugging at it could dislodge it."

Lorna opens her mouth and closes it again. "I really am sorry," she repeats.

"Just don't do it again," John shrugs.

Lorna nods. Uncomfortable, they both turn back to their work in silence. The main room is almost cleared out by now, except for the huge hole in the ground by the stairs, but they still have all the smaller rooms to do, and more importantly downstairs. The vault is nearly untouched, though emptied of all valuables, but the larger room is where a piece of the ceiling fell through.

"Can I ask you something else?" Lorna looks up after a while.

"What?"

"You don't have to answer, but...the drugs you were on. They were painkillers?"

John stops in his tracks and considers her for a moment.

"Yes," he says. "At first, they just helped with my back. I was given a prescription at the hospital, and I was in a lot of pain back then. But I needed a lot even to take the edge off, because my body processes everything faster. In a few months, I built up a huge tolerance, and the pain didn't go away."

"So what happened?"

"They gave me other stuff too, because I had PTSD symptoms. Anti-depressants didn't do much, but the tranquilizers helped calm down sensory overloads. I get those from my mutation," John clarifies as Lorna's questioning look. "When the painkillers stopped being effective, I took them more and more often, because the pain made everything else worse, and I couldn't handle...things. By the time I was discharged, I was taking way too much of both."

"What did you do when you went on the run?"

"I found people who could get more for me," John says. "But I needed money for that, so from there it was a downward spiral. I took more so I needed more. Just your basic junkie story, I guess."

"Until Evangeline found you," Lorna states.

"Until Evangeline found me," John nods. "I'm still not sure how I made it through the acute withdrawal phase. She stayed the whole time. No one could tell me how much I could take before I overdosed, but I must have been pretty close. I'd stopped caring."

"You cared enough to get clean."

"I guess," John laughs, bitterly. "She chained me to a bed."

"Wow. And I thought she got _me_ out of a bad situation."

John meets her eyes, blinking, and they both suddenly break into laughter. It's liberating in a strange way, for two people who haven't had a glimmer of hope in a long time.

"We can really build something here, can't we?" Lorna asks, after their laughs have died away.

John shrugs. "Maybe."

"It feels like an impossible task."

"I know. But...whatever we manage to do, it's better than nothing, right? Look at your friends in the streets. They've already given up. I've seen many other mutants like that. Hell, I was like that."

"Yeah," Lorna sighs. "I didn't think I'd ever get out of that hospital. And I had nothing to go home to anyway."

John nods. "On the road from Tucson, Evangeline took me to a bunch of other stations. They've build real safe havens for mutants there. It's dangerous, and it's hard work, but they're helping people."

"You think we can do that too?" Lorn asks.

"I think I want to try. I think I'd rather fight than give up on life."

"And things will get better?"

"For the world? No," John shakes his head. Lorna opens her mouth, but he continues before she can say a word. "But maybe we can make life better for a few people people around here. I'd count that as a win."

"A good reason to live?" Lorna smirks playfully.

John looks at her for a moment, his head slightly tilted, then a real smile spreads on his face. "Something like that."

* * *

This story was meant to be a glimpse into the birth of the Atlanta Station, and I hope it delivered. I mean to keep going with this series, write more parts but as one-shots or other short fics, rather than one long fic.

I don't know when that will happen, as I have quite a lot on my plate right now. So if you want to get update notifications, you can subscribe to my profile (rather than just this story) or find me on Tumblr (theemmaarthur).

Thank you to everyone who've read and interacted, you all warm my heart and keep me going. Tell me what you've thought of this story and what you'd like to read going forward! And see you soon :)


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